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ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



STUDENTS OF AMHERST COLLEGE, 



AND THE 



CITIZENS OE THE TOWN, 



IN THE FIRST CHURCH IN AMHERST, NOT. 17, 1852. 



REV. JOSEPH HAVEN, A. M. 

PROFESSOR OF INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL rHILOSOPHY IN AMHERST COLLEGE. 



AMHERST: 
J. S. & C. ADAMS, PUIiiJSIIEIlS. 

1 ;^ 5 3 . 



^340 



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Amherst College, Not. 18, 1852. 
Professor Joseph Haven : 

Sir : — At the request of the Students, and Citizens of Amherst, the un- 
dersigned present to you their thanks, for your able, eloquent and impartial 
Eulogy, on the Life and Character of Daniel Webster, delivered before them, 
m the Village Church, on Wednesday Evening, the 17th instant, and request a 
copy of the same for publication. 

, Yours, Kespectfully, 



Joshua N. Marshall, 
William H. Andrews, 
John M. Greene, 
Heuben M. Uenjamin, ( 
Hen-ry Y. Emmons, 
Edward M. Pease, 
lluFus Choate, Jr., 
James M. Ellis. 



y Committee. 



Amherst College, Nov. 19, 1852. 
Gentlemen : — 

I am much indebted to the Students and Citizens of Amherst, for 
the very kind manner in which they received my addfess on the 1 7th instant, 
and to yourselves for the flattering terms in which you exjiress their desire for 
its publication. Prepared as it was on brief notice, and amid the daily routine 
of College duties, I should be quite unwilling to submit it to the public ej'e, 
did not a due regard for the wishes of those who make the request prevail over 
other motives. 

I am. Respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

JOSEPH IIAYEN. 
To J. N. Marshall, W. II. Andrews, and others. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 



Gkeat men arc a nation's choicest treasure. They are its strength, 
its honor and its crown. Who shall rightly estimate the value of 
one truly great man, to any nation? Other treasures may be taken 
from it by violence, or the hand of time ; they may be lost by treach- 
ery or neglect ; they may become worthless by change of circumstan- 
ces and causes unforeseen or unavoidable. Its palaces and works of 
art, its monuments of historic fame, its viens of silver and gold, its 
rich lands, its industrial arts, its navy, its commerce — all, all may be 
diminished and brought low. But its great names, its great lives, its 
great intellects, these are imperishable. No change of seasons, or of 
revolving years, can diminish their value, or obscure their brightness. 
Death may extinguish the fire of the eye, and seal up the eloquent 
lips ; but the name, the greatness, the glory, the immortal influence, 
live on — the nation's rich and indestructablc inheritance. 

Greece was rich in her climate and her fruitful soil ; great in her 
arts and arms ; but greater, richer far, in her great men. They re- 
main. Her arts and her arms, her commerce and her industry, have 
passed away. Her Pericles and her Solon, her Plato and her Socra- 
tes, live on forever. 

The time may come, when one shall enquire in vain for the site of 
the temple of Jupiter or the Parthenon, but no time shall efface from 
human records, and the human memory, the wisdom of Aristotle, the 
eloquence of Demosthenes, the renown of Themistocles. The time 
may come, when the antiquarian of the future shall wander over the 
site of our present cities, and wonder what ruins those may be ; the 
time shall never come, that shall be ignorant of our Washington, and 
our Webster. 

It is in thoughts like these, that we find at once a solace for our 
grief, and yet a j ustification of it. A solace, — for we feel that the 



past is secure ; that a rich legacy is ours, and mil be, to all time, — 
ours and our childrens, — safely and forever ours — the great name of 
Daniel Webster ; that no disaster, no revolution, no calamity, can 
rob us of this greatness, this honor ; it is oiirs. 

" Far, like the comet's way through infinite space, 
Stretches the long untravelled path of light, 
Into the depths of ages." 

And yet there is reason in our grief. When such a man departs, 
when the bright light that like a majestic pillar of fire has moved 
before us, guiding this nation safely and steadily for forty years, is re- 
moved, and takes its place thenceforth among the fixed stars in the 
clear firmament, then it is meet that the nation should recognize its 
loss — should stay awhile the haste of its onward march — should 
pause for a little in its busy and ceaseless avocations — should put on its 
mourning colors and humble itself before heaven — should look up 
and reverently thank the God of our fathers who graciously vouch- 
safed us such a guide — should recall his words, and repeat his name 
and his deeds, and make mention of his virtues and his noble fame, 
and transmit his memory to the coming ages. Who shall estimate 
the worth of such a man to this nation ? nay, to the world — for I 
will take no such narrow view as to suppose that we alone suffer loss 
when such a life is extinguished. What significance, what truth, in 
those Avords uttered by some one in the crowd that gathered to take 
the last look of the departed statesman. " The world will feel lone- 
some without thee." 

Hence the universal grief — the mourning such, so deep, so general, 
as never has been witnessed in this land since Washington departed. 
When it was announced that Daniel Webster was nigh unto death, 
you saw in every face the impress, not to be mistaken, of deep and 
earnest sorrow. Men walked the streets silently, as if afraid to break 
the stillness of that far off chamber at Marshfield, where a great soul 
was passing solemnly away from the earth. They gathered in sad 
groups in the places of business, and at the corners of the streets, 
and everywhere there was but one inquiry. When at last the sad 
tidings came — too true, too certain — that he was dead, — with what a 
universal thrill of sorrow was the announcement received, as it sped 
swiftly from Maine to Florida, It is meet tha^ we should mourn, 
that the nation should deeply feel its loss, that anthem and eulogy 



sKould commemorate his greatness, and speak his praise. It is meet 
that as citizens and students, we should join in this. We cannot for- 
get that he -whom we mourn was himself a student — himself like 
many of you whom I now address, the son of parents not blessed 
with much worldly substance, and compelled therefore like many of 
us, to struggle on thi'ough College at the hardest. That early disci- 
pline and training he never forgot, never ceased to feel a lively inter- 
est in, and sympathy with, the College student. Have wc not a right 
then not only as citizens, but as students, to mingle our poor tribute 
of respect, on this occasion, with the general tribute and the general 
grief. 

You have invited me to express your common feelings at this hour. 
I would that some one abler and worthier than I, were to do this — 
and such there are in this presence. Yet who can do justice to a 
theme like this ? "Who shall speak adequately of such an intellect and 
such a life as Daniel Webster's ? Who shall guage that mighty mind, 
and give you its dimensions and its greatness ? The more I study the 
life and character of that man, the more I feel the comparative little- 
ness and insignificance of other and ordinary men — the more I dwell 
upon his words, the more I feel the poverty of my own. There is but 
one who could have done justice to the occasion, and that is the man 
whose loss we mourn. And then what can I say that has not already 
been better said? Shall I sketch the life of Mr. Webster? Not an 
event, not an incident pertaining to his history, but has been spread 
before the public by every press in the land, till from Boston to San- 
Francisco and the Crescent city, its details are familiar as household 
words. Shall 1 draw his character ? It is seen and read of all men. 
Shall I portray him as an orator ? Which of all his eloquent dis- 
courses is not familiar to you all ? As a statesman, you know what 
were his principles, what his aims, what his achievements. Shall I 
speak of his closing hours? Not a circumstance relating to them, but 
has been read in every hamlet, and wept over by every fire side in 
the land. In what channel then shall I direct your thoughts to- 
night ? I can only cast myself upon your indulgence, while I briefly 
sketch — not as a new thing, but as something which the occasion re- 
quires us to reconsider, and as something worthy to be often re- 
peated, the leading hutlincs of the life and character of the illustri- 
ous statesman. As respects the former, time will allow me to touch 



only upon a few points, and those chiefly connected with his early 
life. 

PAKEXXAGE, EIRT-H-PLACE, A^'D EAELY LIFE, OF MK. WEBSTER. 

In the first half of the last century, when the American colonies 
were yet struggling, along their northern frontier, with the unsubdued 
wilderness and a savage foe, a few hardy adventurers went forth to 
subdue those unbroken forests and those wilder and more formidable 
foes, and boldly advancing to the very borders of civilization, erected 
their rude dwellings, and kindled their hearth fires, where as yet all 
was solitude and danger. 

They were a bold and stalwart race of men, inured to hardship and 
toil, not unacquainted with danger. Their life was a perpetual strug- 
gle, and both mind and body received the impress of surrounding 
circumstances. One of the boldest and hardiest of those border men 
was Col. Ebenezer Webster — a man of striking and altogether pre- 
possessing appearance, — tall, erect, stately, of fine feature and limb, 
of military bearing, active in mind and body, — one of that band of 
rangers, whose exploits along the Lake George and the northern fron- 
tier are still memorable, who shunned no danger, and feared no foe. 
Of that corps were also Stark and Putnam, who with "Webster, 
survived the dangers of that too hazardous warfare, and bore an hon- 
orable part aftervv-ard in the revolutionary struggle. Col. Webster 
is said by those who knew him, to have been in personal appearance, 
one of the finest officers ever seen on the field. His form was manly 
and noble, his carriage bold, his voice full and clear, making itself 
heard along the entire line, like the notes of a clarion. His corps 
was foremost in the battles, at the reduction of Ticonderoga and 
Crown Point, and the capture of Quebec. 

At the close of the French and Indian war, Col. Webster, with a 
number of others, chiefly soldiers, obtained the grant of a township, 
in a valuable tract of country, ceded by the treaty of Aix La Cha- 
pelle to the British dominions. Concord was at that time the fron- 
tier post, and the new township of Salisbury lay fifteen miles beyond, . 
where the Pemigiwasset, flowing from the white hills, and the Winni- 
piseogee, from the beautiful lake of that name, unite to form the 
noble Merrimac. Thither, through the unbroken"forest, he cut himself 
a road, and there in 1763, erected his rude log cabin, with no civ- 



ilized neighbor on the north between him and Montreal. From that 
cabin, the smoke, says Daniel Webster, ascended nearer the north 
star, than that of any of his Majesty's New England subjects. Mr. 
Webster, in one of his speeches, thus alludes to his birth-place. " It 
did not happen to me to be born in a log cabin ; but my elder broth- 
ers and sisters Avere born in a log cabin, raised amid the snow drifts 
of New Hampshire, at a period so early, that when the smoke first 
rose from its rude chimney and curled over the frozen hills, there 
was no similar evidence of a white man's habitation, between it and 
the settlements on the rivers of Canada. Its remains still exist. I 
make to it an annual visit. I carry my children to it to teach them 
the hardships endured by the generations wliich have gone before 
them. I love to dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, 
the early aft'ections, and the touching narratives and incidents which 
mingle Avith all I know of this primitive family abode. I weep to 
think that none of those Avho inhabited it, are now among the living ; 
and if ever I am ashamed of it, or if I ever fail in affectionate vene- 
ration for HIM who reared and defended it against savage violence 
and destruction, cherished all the domestic virtues beneath its roof, 
and through the fire and blood of seven years revolutionary war, 
shrunk from no danger, no toil, no sacrifice, to serve his country, and 
to raise his children to a condition better than his own, may my name 
and the name of my posterity be blotted forever from the memory of 
mankind." 

In process of time, the log cabin Avas exchanged for a neat, small, 
one-story, frame-house, and in this Daniel Webster Avas born, Jan. 
18, 1782. This too has since disappeared, but the aa'cII that Avas near 
it, and the elm that Avas planted by it, still remain. The Avaters of the 
one are as cool and clear, and the shade of the other, as Avide and re- 
fi'eshing, as Avhen the forms that are now departed, in the years far 
off, drank from that iron-bound bucket, and reposed beneath those 
spreading branches. For more than sixty years, Mr. Webster has an- 
nually visited this spot of his nativity, and drank of those Avaters, and 
sat beneath that spreading elm. 

The scenery of that portion of New England is A\-ell fitted to nur- 
ture, and call forth the slumbering elements of greatness in the soul. 
It is wild and romanfic. The bleak harsh stern hills, says the histo- 
rian, " among Avhich his cradle hung high in the air, like the eyrie of 



8 

an eagle, are all untamed, untamable. But in tbeir sadness and deep 
but not voiceless solemnity, tbey are suggestive of lovely musings, 
and thoughts original and lofty as themselves. Tbey feed the hungry 
mind with images noble, elevated, and partaking of tbeir own im- 
mortality. The laboring clouds in their vague career, often rested 
on the summits of these hills, covering them over as with a garment, 
so that they presented at times to the belated traveler of the val- 
leys, the appearance of turbaned giants. Their scarred faces attested 
the violence of the tempests that raged around them, and beat upon 
them. In winter, w^hich lasted half the year, snows of a prodigious 
and dangerous depth, covered the ground, obliterating every land- 
mark, andgi^•ing to all nature, an aspect of desolate sublimity." Cir- 
cumstances like these, we may well suppose, awakened the youthful 
imagination of a mind formed by nature to appreciate and sympa- 
thize with the truly grand and sublime in the external world, and 
imparted to that mind both an early maturity, and a loftiness of 
thought, not otherwise perhaps attained. 

The mother of Daniel Webster, Abigail Eastman, of Salisbury, 
the second wife of Col. Webster, was a woman of strong mind, and 
to her it is said, not less than to his father, is the son indebted for 
some of his most striking traits of character. She was a woman of 
high spirit, proud of her sons, and ambitious of their future dis- 
tinction. 

The child is father of the man, says the philosophic bard. If in 
the present case the man was throngh life fond of those manly rec- 
reations and field sports which develop the i:ihysical energies, so was 
his father the cliild. The hill is still pointed out whither, as regular- 
ly as the winter days come round, the boy, scarcely higher than the 
snows through which he stoutly trod, wended his way in the sever- 
est rio-ors of a New Hampshire winter, to enjoy the sport so dear to 
every child's heart, "when the swift sled goes coasting down the hill." 
And when the snows were gone, there were the brooks, and no nook 
or turn, or deep hole where a trout might bide, in all thek winding 
course, for miles around, was unknown to that boy. 

His love of books was not second, even at this early period, to that 
of the field sports. His father was a good reader, and from him the 
boy caught the inspiration of the voice, and of the melody of Eng- 
lish verse, as of a winter evening he read aloud, in the hearing of his 



family, passages from his favorite authors. The school was migrato- 
ry, and often at a distance ; but at a very early age Daniel was sent on 
foot, regardless of the storms and the snows, frequently not less than 
two or three miles, carrying his dinner in a basket, to enjoy advan- 
tages meagre at the best. The boy early learned that knowledge 
was a treasure worth procuring at any sacrifice, and what he thus ac- 
quired was worth the effort. Little more was taught in that humble 
school, than the simplest elements, but no sooner had he learned to 
read, than a new world opened before him. His fiither"s fovorite au- 
thors, and the volumes of a small circulating library, supplied him 
with a few books, but these were read and read again, till many of 
them, especially the poets, were in part or wholly committed to mem- 
ory. The Spectator was one of those few works ; while Pope's Es- 
say on Man, the sublime lyrical compositions of Watts, and the yet 
sublimer poetry of the Bible, were not only read with delight, but the 
two former, together with large portions of the latter, were fully com- 
mitted to memory. 

ACADEMIC COUKSE OF MK. VrEBSTEE. 

The parents of jSIr. "Webster, though not themselves highly educa- 
ted, were disposed to obtain for their children, those advantages 
which had not fallen to their own lot. But the "res angustae domi" 
had well nigh prevented all thought of a public education for any of 
their sons. There were ten children. To send one to an academy at 
the expense of the rest, seemed unfair. More than that they could 
not do, and even that with difficulty. The height of their ambition 
was that Daniel, the youngest but one, and the feeblest in constitu- 
tion, should by a few months instruction at some academy, be quali- 
fied to teach school during the winter months ; — quite a different 
sphere of life from what Providence had marked out for the lad. Mr. 
"Webster in a private letter, written a few years since, to a friend, thus 
alludes to a conversation with his father on this subject. 

" Of a hot day in July, it must have been one of the last years of 
Washington's administration, I was making hay with my father, just 
where I now see a remaining elm tree, about the middle of the af- 
ternoon. The Hon. Abiel Foster, M. C. who lived in Canterbury, 
six miles off, called. at the house, and came into the field to see my 
father. When he was gone, my father called me to him, and he sat 



10 

down beneath the elm, on a hay cock. He said, ' my son, that is a 
worthy man — he is a member of congress — he goes to Philadelphia, 
and gets six dollars a day, while I toil here. It is because he had an 
education, which I never had. If I had his early education, I should 
have been in Philadelphia, in his place. I came near it, as it was. 
But I missed it, and now I must work here. My dear father, said I, 
you shall not work. Brother and I will work for you, and wear our 
hands out, and you shall rest. I remember to have cried, — and I cry 
now, at the recollection. My child, said he, it is of no importance to 
me ; I now live but for my children. I could not give your elder 
brother the advantages of knowledge, but I can do something for 
you. Exert yourself — improve your opportunities — learn — learn — 
and when I am gone, you will not need to go through the hardships 
which I have undergone, and which have made me an old man before 
my time,' " 

The result Avas that, the following year, he was sent to Exeter Phil- 
lips Academy, then under the charge of the celebrated teacher Ben- 
jamin Abbott, LL. D. The father accompanies the boy. Carriages 
not being then in use in that region, the journey is performed on 
horseback. On a bright spring morning, — it was the 24th of May, 
1796, — we obtain a glimpse of the boy clad in a new suit of domes- 
tic blue, mounted on a ladies side-saddle, (which a neighbor had oc- 
casion to send,) commencing the journey to Exeter — a three days 
toilsome ride, — toilsome doubtless to a boy of 14. It is the com- 
mencement not of a journey to Exeter merely, but of the fortunes of 
our hero. America's future statesman, perched on a side-saddle, 
bound for Exeter ! The next day after their arrival, he goes with his 
father to apply for admission to the academy. The learned Dr., in 
all the dignity of the olden time, is seated in the great hall. Sol- 
emnly putting on his official emblem, the cocked hat, he says with all 
due gravity, let the young gentleman be presented for examination. 
The scene is thus described by one who has gathered up many inci- 
dents of no little interest, touching the early life of Mr. Webster. 

"Mr. Webster, with his hat in his hand, modestly advanced and stood 
before him. He was in a strange place, and strangers were around 
him, but he was as self possessed, as on a subsequent occasion, when 
he rose to reply to General Hayne of South Carolina. It is his na- 
ture to be self possessed. "What is your age?" "Fourteen." 



11 

" Take this bible my lad, and read that chapter." The chapter giv- 
en him to read was the 22d chapter, Gospel according to St. Luke. 
The description of the conspiring of the Jews, the betrayal of Christ 
by Judas, the denial of Peter 6lc. oNIr. Webster took the book and 
read in a clear tone, with due emphasis, as he had been taught by 
his father to read. He was equal to the occasion. He was able to 
concentrate his mind on the matter, and to control his manner. The 
Dr. listened with astonishment; and as the young man before him 
proceeded, giving full effect to every word of that beautiful narration, 
he seemed in a trance and never interrupted him. He read to the 
end. Such a trial would have been a severe test to most boys, but 
in that exercise, Daniel was perfectly at home. He shut up the book, 
and handed it to Dr. Abbott, who asked him no more questions. 

" Young man," said he, " you are qualified to enter this institution." 
He had never before heard the chapter better read. The Dr. still 
lives, and is not so proud of any one act of his life, or of any one of 
his three thousand pupils, as of teaching that boy. 

Mr. Webster remained nine months at that academy. His pro- 
gress elicited the warmest admiration of his instructor, and he left 
the school with a good understanding of the English and Latin lan- 
guages. There was one thing, however, he did not understand at that 
time, strange as it may seem. " I believe," says Mr. Webster, " I made 
tolerable progress in most branches which I attended to while in this 
school, but there was one thing I could not do. I could not 
make a declamation. I could not speak before the school. The 
kind and excellent Buckminster sought especially to persuade me to 
perform the exercise of declamation, like other boys, but I could not 
do it. Many a piece did I commit to memory, and write and re- 
hearse in my own room, over and over again ; yet when the day came, 
when the school collected to hear declamations, when my name was 
called, and I saw all eyes turned to my seat, I could not raise myself 
from it. Sometimes the instructors frowned, sometimes they smiled. 
Mr. Buckminster always pressed and entreated most winningly that 
I would venture once. But I never could command sufficient resolu- 
tion ; and when the occasion was over, I went home and wept bitter tears 
of mortification." And this is the man who became the greatest or- 
ator of his time. 

After a short time spent on liis return from Exeter, in teacliing a 



m 

school in his native town, Mr. Webster goes to reside for a time, in 
the family of Rev. Dr. Wood of Boscawen, a man deeply interested 
in the education of j-outh. 

It was on his way toward Mr. Woods', in the narrow and secluded 
road from Salisbury to Boscawen, that his father announced to him, 
for the first time, his intention to give him a college education. The 
thought it seems had never occurred to him that such a thing was 
possible. It was beyond the utmost dream of his ambition. " I re- 
member," says Mr. Webster, " the very hill which we were ascending, 
through deep snow, in a New England sleigh, when my father made 
known this purpose to me. I could not speak. How could he, I 
thought, with so large a family, and in such narrow circumstances, 
think of incurring so great an expense for me. A warm glow ran all 
over me, and I laid my head on my father's shoulder and wept." 

The business of preparation for college now commenced in ear- 
nest. Indeed it was high time that it should. Nine months only, it 
will be recollected, had as yet been past by Mr. Webster in an acad- 
emy, and those devoted chiefly to English studies. It was now 
March ; — in August he was to enter Dartmouth. So late as June of 
that season, he had not as yet opened a Greek Grammar. But un- 
tiring diligence and native energy of character, resolute earnest ap- 
plication, and good native talent, combining, and materially aiding 
each other, can accomplish wonders. Mr. Webster took his place 
in an advanced class, that was reviewing Cicero's Orations. He had 
never read a page of them. Was it the clearness and beauty of that 
inimitable master of eloquence — was it the inherent elegance and 
richness of the Latin tongue — was it the affluance of thought and 
diction, and the force of argument, with which those pleadings are 
conducted — or was it that this youth found here, at last, something 
congenial to the nature and bent of his own mind, and struck, at last, 
a path which his conscious genius recognized as its own legitimate 
and lawful domain ? — We will not determine ; — but however this may 
be, this lad of fourteen, took up that volume, which he had never 
before seen, and read it as by intuition. His mind coursed along the 
glowing sentences, as if they were his own words, and caught up 
those impetuous earnest arguments, as if they were his own thoughts. 
No task, he afterwards declared, was so easily accomplished. Greek 
was all otherwise to him. He could, in those few weeks, do little 



13 

more, of course, than master the elements, and these hy no means 
insoired him. He never mastered that language, owing to this im- 
perfect preparation, and ground- work in it, partly perhaps to a want of 
taste for the peculiarities of the language. The Latin he found con- 
genial ; and with that, and his own native, nohle Saxon, he was 
content. 

The time came for him to enter college. No youth prohahly ever 
presented himself for that dread ordeal — examination, — with a more 
rapid and imperfect course of preparation, or with more uncertainty, 
as to the result. It was well that he was self-possessed, well that he 
perfectly understood himself, and knew what he knew, well moreo- 
ver that he had two such good friends, as Dr. Abbott, and Dr, Wood, 
both also friends and patrons of the college. Indeed, it was chiefly 
through their influence, and their high opinion of his capacity for 
acquisition, that he found favor in this emergency. He had set out 
from home, on horseback, clad once more in a new suit of blue, of 
domestic manufacture. On his way, he encountered a violent storm, 
which swept away bridges, made roads impassible, rendered his jour- 
ney unusually circuitous, and gave him personally, thus early, and 
by anticipation of the usual experience of freshman year, a thorough 
drenching. When he arrived at college, he found the faculty in ses- 
sion, and no time to be lost. Judge of his consternation at discov- 
ering, on entering his room, that the soaking rain had started the col- 
or of his new suit, and from head to foot, beneath his clothing, he 
was as blue as an indigo bag. There was no time then for delay, 
however, on the niceties of the toilet, and so, all blue as he was, from 
head to foot, he presented himself for examination. With perfect 
self-possession and tact, he narrated his case, — what he had read, 
what time spent in preparation, the disadvantages under which he 
had labored, nor did he forget to mention the mishaps of the way. 
Thus you see me, said he, if not entitled to your approbation, at least, 
to your sympathy. He passed the ordeal however, and was admit- 
ted to college, not so much for what he knew, as for what he could 
know. 

The imperfect preparation of young Webster retarded his pro- 
gress, and was a serious obstacle through his entire course. Xo man 
was more fully sensible of his loss, in this respect, nor more sincerely 
regretted it in subsequent life, than Daniel Webster. In Greek and 



Mathematics he never excelled. His mind had no aptitude or bias 
in that direction. But he was a faithful student, even of branches in 
which he could not excel, and in all, maintained a highly respectable 
rank. Other studies there were, in which he did excel. With Ge- 
ography, and History, he was delighted, and made great proficiency in 
them. Logic commended itself to his taste, and his habit of mind. 
Virgil, and Cicero, he read as a pastime, and con amore. Natural 
and Moral Philosophy engaged, and deeply interested him. Of Rhe- 
toric and English Composition, he was thoroughly master. But it 
was chiefly in the sciences of Logic and Mental Philosophy, that he 
found the kind of aliment which his strong mind demanded. When 
he came to this part of his course, not content with the lessons of the 
class, he read by himself, and with intense satisfaction. Watts on the 
Mind, and Locke on the Understanding. He devoured them, pon- 
dered on them, made them his own, actually committed them to mem- 
ory. " When he came to these great lights," says one who knew Mr. 
Webster well, and to whom I am indebted for many of these facts of 
his earlier history, — " he began to see more clearly than ever, the na- 
ture of the mind, and proceeded to the vigorous discipline of his own 
powers of analysis, — so that ere the Faculty were aware of it, they 
had a logician in their presence, whose skill in argument, and deep 
penetration, baffled all their learning and experience." 

I have dwelt the more fully upon these incidents of his college 
life, because the impression has somewhat generally been entertained, 
that Mr. Webster, whatever attainments he may subsequently have 
made, in science and solid learning, by no means distinguished him- 
self as a student, while in college, but was rather, one of that suf- 
ficiently numerous class of young men, whose expansive minds, scorn- 
ing the narrow bounds of college routine and college study, over- 
flow all their banks like the Nile and stretch off in every direction, in 
one wide and boundless inundation, over the fields of literature, belles- 
lettres, and things in general. As respects Mr. AVebster, nothing 
is further from the truth. Whatever countenance such a course may 
derive from other examples, it can draw none whatever, from his. He 
was indeed a great reader, — but he was also a hard and diligent stu- 
dent, while in college, as well as afterwards, and whatever success 
attended him in after life, whatever fields of literature he cultivated, 
and adorned, whatever obstacles he met and overcame, whatever vie- 



15 

tories he won in the Forum and the Senate Chamber, he was indebted 
for it all, first and chiefly, to that habit of diligent, thorough, patient, 
study and preparation, Avhich was formed early in the academic 
course, and never through life, on any occasion, laid aside. 

The following testimony, from Professor Shurtletf, of Dartmouth 
College, Mr. Webster's college companion and friend, is conclusive as 
to this matter. 

" Mr. Webster, while in college, was remarkable for his steady 
habits, his intense application to study, and his punctual attendance 
upon all the prescribed exercises. I know not that he was absent 
from a recitation, or from morning and evening prayers in the chapel, 
or from public worship on the Sabbath ; and I doubt if ever a smile 
was seen upon his face during any religious exercise. He was al- 
wavs in his place, and with a decorum suited to it. He had no col- 
lision with any one, nor appeared to enter into the concerns of oth- 
ers, but emphatically minded his own business." 

The folloAving extract, from a speech delivered by Mr. W^ebster, 
some years since, before the students at Amherst College, sets forth 
clearly and forcibly the true method of intellectual culture and great- 
ness. His example adds emphasis to his words. 

" Costly apparatus and splended cabinets have no magical power to 
make scholars. In all circumstances, as a man is, under God, the 
master of his own fortune, so he is the maker of his own mind. The 
Creator has so constituted the human intellect, that it can only grow 
by its own action, and by its own action it will certainly and neces- 
sarily grow. Every man must, therefore, educate himself. His book 
and teacher are but helps ; the work is his. A man is not educated 
until he has the ability to summon, in an emergency, all his mental 
powers in vigorous exercise to effect its proposed object. It is not 
the man who has seen most, or has read most, who can do this ; such 
a one is in danger of being borne down, like a beast of burden, by 
an overloaded mass of other men's thoughts. Nor is it the man who 
can boast merely of native vigor and 'capacity. The greatest of all 
warriors that went to the seige of Troy had not the preeminence, be- 
cause nature had given strength, and he carried the largest bow, but 
because self discipline had taught Iwio to bend it.'' 

Mr. Webster graduated with honor, pronouncing a discourse on 
that occasion, on the recent discoveries in Chemistry. He also deliv- 



16 

ered an address before one of the literary societies, on tlie day pre- 
ceding Commencement, on the Influence of Opinion. 

SUBSEQXJEXX CAREER, AXD PUBLIC LIFE, OE MR. WEBSTER. 

After graduation, Mr. Webster took charge, for a time, of the 
Academy at Fryeburg, a beautiful town on the Saco, in Maine. His 
salary was only three hundred and fifty dollars a year, the whole of 
which he managed to save, for the benefit of his brother, whom he 
was aiding in his college course. In order to do this, he employed 
his evenings in the irksome business of copying deeds, in the Regis- 
trars office. In addition to all this, he reviewed also his college 
studies in great part, during the year. The time was now come, how- 
ever, for Mr. Webster to enter upon the immediate studies of his 
profession. Resigning his place at Fryeburg, in Sept. of the same 
year, 1802, he enters the law office of Mr. Thompson, in his native 
town — the same office in which he had formerly sat, a barefooted boy, 
wdth his Latin Grammar, to tell visitors where Mr. Thompson had 
gone. That office is still standing, though now disused, — a small wood- 
en building, near the old homestead, one story high, and of antiqua- 
ted appearance. Two magnificent elms throw their protecting 
branches over it. It is divided into two rooms, one in front for the 
business of the office, the other in the rear, for study and consulta- 
tion, — a chimney rising in the centre, and a large old-fashioned fire- 
place opening into the front or business room. There the -s-isitor sees, 
to this day, the same furniture, the same tables and chairs, the very 
book case, -s^-ith the old volumes from whose pages Webster first 
learned the noble science of the Law, — the table Avith the green cov- 
er, under the window, in the little back room, where he sat and 
poured over Coke upon Littleton, and Espinasse Nisi Prius, in those 
now far off days. That little law office in Salisbury will hereafter 
be one of the chief places of interest, to the youth of our country, 
and the visitor from other lands. 

After two years thus spent in the study of his profession, at Salis- 
bury, Mr. Webster, desiring more thorough education than he was 
likely to acquire under his old instructor, and a wider field of obser- 
vation, came to Boston, and entered the office of Mr. Gore, a lawyer 
of great experience and reputation. The next year, 1805, having 



17 

now completed the usual course of law education, he was admitted to 
the bar. About this time, to the no small joy of his father, then one 
of the judges of the County Court of New Hampshire, Mr. Webster 
received the appointment of Clerk of the Court, with a salary of 
$1500 per annum — a princely offer, as money was then valued, and 
to one who had been struggling all his life with poverty. Few young 
men, under the circumstances, could have resisted the temptation. 
But to accept the office Avas to bid adieu to all future distinction, and 
to remain always mere Clerk of the County Court of New Hampshire. 
Mr. Webster was destined for something higher than that. Happily 
for the country, he did not accept the office — concluded to be some- 
thing else in this world than Clerk of County Court in New Hamp- 
shire. It was chiefly through the influence of Mr. Gore, that he 
came to this decision. The chief difficulty was, however, to satisfy 
his father in the matter. It was now in the depth of winter. He 
starts in an open sleigh for New Hampshire, and, after a tedious 
journey of three days, reaches home at nightfall. He finds his father 
sitting in his easy chair before the fire, looking feebler than he had 
ever seen him, and of course quite unaware of what his young clerk 
had come to announce. Not a suspicion had ever crossed his mind 
that the young man might not, after all, accept the appointment. He 
had taken this for granted. He at once alludes to the remarkable 
good fortune which had placed such a prize at his disposal, and con- 
gratulates him on his prospects. Judge of his surprise, when, in 
reply, the young man expresses no particular disposition to avail him- 
self of this good fortune. " You do not intend to decline this office ?"' 
" Most certainly," — is the replj- — "I moan to be myself an actor, not 
a register of other men's actions."' " For a moment," says one who 
had heard Mr. Webster relate the story, "Judge Webster seemed 
angry. He rocked his chair slightly, a flash went over his eye, soft- 
ened by age, but even then black as jet, but it immediately disap- 
peared, and his countenance regained its usual serenity. ' Well, my 
son,' said the Judge, finally, ' your mother has always said that you 
would come to something or nothing, she was not sure Avhich. I 
think you are now about settling that doubt for her.' The Judge 
never afterward spoke to his son on the subject." The old man 
lived to hear his son's first plea in court, and died content. 

After completing his legal studies and being admitted to the bar, 
3 



18 

Mr. Webster opened an office in Boscawen. After the death of his 
father he removed, in 1807, to Portsmouth, where he resided for the 
next nine years. It was a fine field for the cultivation of his talents. 
No bar in the United States at that time presented an equal array 
of talent. There he came into competition with such men as Jere- 
miah Mason, Edward Livermore, George Sullivan, Samiiel Dexter, 
and Joseph Story ; and to the quickening influence of such minds, in 
competition with his own, Mr. Webster has always regarded himself 
as indebted, in no small degree, for what he himself became. In 
1813, then thirty years old, he took his seat as representative of his 
native State in Congress, — and from that time onward his course and 
career are public and known of all men. I need not follow Mr. 
Webster into this new sphere of action. You are familiar with it all; 
— the excited state of the public mind at the period when Mr. Web- 
ster commenced his public life — the country then at war with Great 
Britain ; — his first speech in Congress on the repeal of the Berlin and 
Milan decrees ; — his speech on the repeal of the embargo — both mas- 
terly efforts, raising him at once to the front rank of debaters in the 
House; — his re-election to Congress in 1814 ; — his removal to Boston, 
two years after — for which Massachusetts has reason to be thankful, 
and reason to be proiid ; — his celebrated argument in the Dartmouth 
College case, before the Supreme Court of the United States ; — his 
activity in the Convention of 1821 for revising the constitution of the 
State ; — his return to Congress, in 1822, as a representative of Massa- 
chusetts ; — his noble advocacy of the cause of liberty in Greece ; — his 
re-election in 1824 by an almost unanimous vote; — his appearance in 
the Senate in 1826 ; — ^his grand encounter with Hayne, in January, 
1830 ; — his contest with Calhoun and nullification in 1833; — his course 
with respect to the high-handed measures of the Jackson Adminis- 
tration, in the removal of the deposits, — and with respect to the mea- 
sures of the Van Buren dynasty; — his appointment, in 1841, as Sec- 
retary of State under Harrison ; — ^his settlement of the boundary diffi- 
culty, by the Ashburton treaty ; — ^his retirement to private life ; — his 
return to Congress in 1845; — his opposition to the Mexican treaty 
and annexation of Texas ; — his celebrated speech of the 7th of March, 
1849 ; — his able discharge of the duties of Secretary of State during 
the present administration ; — his Hulsemann letter ; — his retui-n home 
with impaired health and a heavy heart, neglected and dishonored by 



19 

his ungrateful country, to set his house in order, and to die ; — the 
scenes of those hist days at Marshfield ; — the conflict, cubn and stern, 
with the last dread antagonist ; — the strength borrowed from a source 
unseen ; — the calm reliance on the gospel of Christ ; — the confident 
hope of immortality ; — those words, so full of significance, as the soul, 
just hovering on the wing, turned back for a moment, ere it passed 
on through the dark portals, and, looking out again, once more, from 
the eyes tiiat were growing dark, and moving once more the eloqvient 
lips, so soon to be forever silent, gave utterance to that sublime, that 
last expression, "J still live'" — then passed away ; — all this you know, 
nor need I repeat these things. They are public events. They are 
the history of this nation for the last forty years. They are part and 
parcel of the annals of the last half century, incorporated into the 
very substance and fabric of the time, as the constellation Hercules 
spreads itself abroad and stretches out afar along the upper firma- 
ment, seen of all eyes. No words, no poor narrative of mine, is 
needed to inform you of these things. 

Closing here, then, our sketch — too long, perhaps, but yet imper- 
fect — of the life of Mr. Webster, we pass on to contemplate him un- 
der those aspects in which his career more definitely presents him — 
as Lawyer, Statesman, Orator, Man. 

MR. WEBSTER AS A LAWYER. 

Beyond all question, Mr. Webster stood at the head of the Amer- 
ican bar — and this is saying not a little. It is honor enough for one 
man ; a higher honor than to be at the head of the army, or President 
of the United States. For upwards of forty years, Mr. Webster has 
held his high position. He has had no rival ; almost no compeer. 
No man probably ever grasped all the details of a complicated law 
case with such perfect clearness and dcfiniteness of comprehension, 
unraveled its intricacies with such unerring precision, and handed 
it over to Judge and Jui-y so completely unraveled, that the cloudi- 
est intellect could hardly fail to comprehend it, — so illuminated and 
, clothed in light, that the darkest mind could hardly fail to sec 
through it, — so stripped of all ambiguity and doubt as to be already 
in fact a settled question — a decided case, awaiting only the formal 
assent of Judge and Jury, — no man had the power to do this so 
fully, so easily, so invariably, as Daniel Webster. It was not with 



20 

him the petty and altogether discreditable art of making the worse 
appear the better reason, of confusing the mind by distorting and 
perverting and confounding all things, presenting wrong issues, with- 
holding the true and suggesting the false, and little by little leading 
the hearer into a labyrinth of error, from which escape is hopeless — 
not this, not this, was his method ( not this, the secret of his power. 
By no such paltry and miserable artifices did he prevail. He called 
to his aid no subterfuge, no trick of professional cunning. His course 
was open, manly, and above-board. His blows were dealt in open 
day ; their whole force lay in the well-directed aim and the terrible 
strength with which they were sent. An iron-headed and relentless 
logic, seized upon and propelled by a determined and resistless will, 
moved straight onward to its mark, like the old Roman battering 
ram. Stroke after stroke, recoiling for a moment only to come back 
with new momentum, back and forth it swung, as if it Avould never 
weary, and solid, indeed, must be the masonry of error that could 
stand before it. He prevailed not by stratagem, but by sheer 
strength — strength of intellect grasping the truth, as Samson grasped 
and bore avVay the gates of Gaza ; — seizing facts and hurling them, as 
the Cyclops hurled rocks into the sea. 

How came he by this power? In part, doubtless, it was the gift 
of nature. He was a strong man by constitution and the Creator's 
will. A frame like that, a brain like that, a nervous energy like that, 
are indications of no ordinary mental endowment. But it was not by 
native talent alone that he was strong, and superior to other men in 
argument. He was a diligent student — deeply, thoroughly read in 
his profession. Few lawyers equaled him, none probably surpassed 
him, in the extent, the variety, the thoroughness of his reading. He 
dug deep and laid a foundation capable of sustaining a noble and 
enduring s\iperstructure. The first years of his professional life were 
years of vmremitting and intense application. Nor were those habits 
of study ever laid aside. He was a diligent student to the last. 

It is o-\\'ing to this thorough study and complete apprehension of 
his subject in all its extent and all its bearings, that his law argu- 
ments are so luminous and instructive. They unfold and bring out, 
with great clearness and precision, the grand principles involved in 
the case, and hence they have all the authority of precedents. A 
marked instance of this occurs in liis argument in defense of Dart- 



21 

moutli College against the enactments of the State Legislature. It 
■was a new case in jurisprudence — unknown to American law — and 
presenting points of no small difficulty. The Superior Court of New 
Hampshire had decided it adversely to the College. Chief Justice 
Story said, on running his eye over the case as it came before the 
Supreme Court of the United States, that he did not see how any- 
thing could be made out of it for the defendants. But Mr. Webster 
had not been speaking ten minutes before he changed his opinion, in 
respect to that point, at least. The nature, powers, privileges, and 
prerogatives of corporations and eelymosinary institutions, were fully 
explained ; and no case of a similar nature has ever been argued 
since, or will be for centuries to come, without frequent reference to 
the principles advanced, and the questions definitively settled and put 
at rest, by that masterly argument. 

MR. WEBSXER AS A STATESMAN. 

As Statesman, how shall we sketch INIr. Webster ? Whether we 
refer to his speeches in Congress, to his state papers, to the treaties 
with foreign powers Avhich he was instrumental in negotiating, to his 
whole course as an advocate of the great interests which are insepar- 
ably connected with the welfare of the country, and above all, as an 
expositor and defender of the Constitution, in each and all these re- 
spects how does this man stand forth preeminent above all the men 
of his time, as the great statesman of America. Not one of his 
speeches in Congress, not one of his great public acts, but would con- 
fer suflicient honor to immortalize any other man. 

Mr. Webster came into Congress at a period of great political 
excitement. He came with no experience, no previous acquaintance 
with the proceedings of legislative and deliberative assemblies. He 
met, in Congress, an arraj' of rival talent, such as is not often col- 
lected in those halls — Calhoun, Forsyth, Grundy, Gaston, Pickering, 
Ingersoll, King, were all members of the House at the time when 
Mr. Webster took his seat in it. Henry Clay was its accomplished 
presiding officer. Mr. Webster, though young and inexperienced iu 
Congressional tactics, was at once recognized by the quick eye of the 
Speaker as no ordinary man, and was at once placed on the most im- 
portant committee — that of Foreign Relations. For some weeks he sat 
quietly in his scat, observing ail things, saying nothing. His first 



22 

speech took the House by surprise. It was modest and respectful, 
but earnest and bold. There Avas the same calm, collected manner, 
the same self-reliance and self-respect, the same thorough mastery of 
the subject, the same affluence of thought and nervousness of diction, 
and chaste critical propriety of speech and manner, that characterized 
all his later productions. The House was not prepared for this in a 
new member, and a young man. Grave and experienced men, whose 
heads were already gray with the toils of public life, were astonished 
to find themselves instructed in state matters by a young man making 
his maiden speech. It was soon apparent that he knew whereof he 
was affirming, and understood the subject better than them all. The 
House became perfectly silent, as by common consent. Members laid 
aside their pens and papers, and those who were distant left their 
seats and gathered around the speaker. Every eye was fixed on him, 
and when he sat down, he had already won a place, in the estimation 
of that entire body, as one of the first three among their men of 
might. 

What a triumvirate was that — Clay, Calhoun, and Webster ! 
Associated through almost the entire period of their public life, — the 
acknowledged leaders, first of the House and afterwards of the Sen- 
ate, — rivals often for the public favor, — antagonists often, — little like 
each other, not altogether friendly to each other, — yet each recogniz- 
ing in the others an ability worthy of his highest respect. Not often 
are three such minds brought into contact in the same sphere of 
action and the same generation of men. It was Mr. Webster's for- 
tune, wherever he moved, to be brought into communication and 
competition with men of great strength ; — Mason, and Sullivan, and 
Story, at the bar ; Calhoun and Clay, in Congress. Not a little was 
he indebted to this competition. It brought out the man. With 
lesser rivals and antagonists, he would have been himself a Aveaker 
man. It needed the cry, " the Philistines are upon thee, Samson," to 
rouse the giant. 

No one of these three was decidedly inferior to the others. Each 
possessed some advantages which the others had not. Of Calhoun, 
whatever question may rise in any mind respecting his policy, and 
the wisdom of his course, no one will ever call in question the ability, 
the preeminent intellectual force, the admirable sagacity, the meta- 
physical acuteness, the unequaled powers of reasoning, the pride, 



25 

and strength, and loftiness of mind. " In his tempestuous elo- 
quence," says an elegant writer, referring to his celebrated effort in 
defense of State rights, "he tore to pieces the arguments of his oppo- 
nents, as the hurricane rends the sails. Nothing withstood the ardor 
of his mind. No sophistry, however ingenious, puzzled him ; no 
rhetorical ruse escaj^ed his detection. He overthrew logic that 
seemed impregnable, and demolished the most compact theory in a 
breath." 

As unlike this man was Henry Clay, as Kentucky is unlike South 
Carolina. Impetuous, ardent, chivalric, fearless, less lofty in intel- 
lect, less towering and sullen in grandeur, than Calhoun, but vastly 
his superior in the art of popular address, the art of finding his way 
to the hearts of men, and carrying them captive at his will, he threw 
into his oratory not more strength, not more intellect, than Calhoun, 
— by no means so much, — but, what Calhoun never had, and what 
for popular oratory avails even more than intellectual strength, a 
warmth and earnestness of manner — a soul, a heart, all glowing and 
animate with the very spirit and genius of eloquence; and his speech 
was irresistible. In the popular assembly, and on the floor of Con- 
gress, no man — not even our own Webster — held the whole body of 
his hearers more completely spell-bound and captive, or swayed them 
hither and thither with his breath, as the forest trees sway to and fro 
before the blast. As Speaker, " He governed the House," says the 
writer already quoted, " with more absoluteness than any Speaker 
that preceded or followed him. It was a power foundad upon char- 
acter and manners. Fearless, energetic, decided, he swayed the timid 
by superior will, and governed the bold through sympathy. He cul- 
tivated, Avhat our great men too much neglect, the philosophy of 
manners. None knew better than he the wondrous power in seem- 
ing trifles, how much a word, a tone, a look, can accomplish ; what 
direction give to the whole character of opinion and conduct. As an 
orator, he was unequaled. His voice was sonorous and musical, 
falling with proper cadence from the highest to the lowest tones, at 
times, when in narration or description, modulated, smooth, and 
pleasing, like sounds of running water ; but when raised to animate 
and cheer, it was as clear and spirit-stirring as the notes of a clarion, 
the House all the while ringing with its melody." 

Such were the men by whose side Webster, at the very first bound, 



24 

took his place as compeer and rival, — inferior neither to Calhoun in 
loftiness and strength, in power of analysis and argumentation, ifi 
thorough mastery and comprehension of a subject, nor yet to Clay, 
in the power to touch the sensibilities and take captive the hearts of 
men by the magic of his words. 

In the Senate, Mr. Webster had other formidable competitors. 
Indeed, his chief antagonist, in the political struggles of the time, 
was not either of these. Benton was there, the great Benton, — fierce, 
fiery, and intractable as a volcano in full blast ; — pouring forth all 
manner of speech — at once vituperative, personal, figurative, coarse ; 
now couching his abuse under a grotesque simile ; now hurling it 
unmasked, and with damnatory explosiveness, direct at the head of 
his foe ; — this man, too, was one of Mr. Webster's assailants. And 
far superior to Benton, the g-allant Hayne, whose name, had it no 
other celebrity, is immortal for the same reason that the name of 
^schines will never die. " Hayne," says the historian, " rushed 
into debate like the Mameluke cavalry upon the charge. There was 
a gallant air about him that could not but ■\^-in admiration. He 
never provided for retreat ; he never imagined it. He had an invin- 
cible confidence in himself, which arose partly from constitutional 
temperament, partly from previous success. His was the Napoleonic 
Avarfare, to strike at once for the capital of the enemy, heedless of 
danger or cost to his own forces. His oratory was graceful and per- 
suasive. An impassioned manner, somewhat vehement at times, but 
rarely, if ever, extravagant ; a voice well modulated and clear ; a dis- 
tinct, though rapid, enunciation — these accompanying and illustrating 
language well selected, and periods well turned, made him a popular" 
and eff"ective sijeaker." Mr. Everett, also, speaks of him as a man 
" of ability far above the average, a highly accomplished debater 
and experienced politician." 

These, and such as these, were Mr. Webster's opponents. You 
know how, and when, — in what manner, and with what success, he 
met them ; — how Hayne's Mameluke lance was shivered at the first 
encounter, himself unhorsed and sent flying through the air, as by 
the stroke of no mortal arm ; — and how Calhoun's proud crest came 
down, and that lofty fabric of state rights and nullification, that he 
had built so high, so massive and compact, and said to himself " this 
shall be eternal, and on tliis will I write my name," no sooner felt 



25 

the sturdy blows of that iron logic, with its steady swing, than it 
shook to its base, and tottered, and reeled, and fell, with a crash 
heard from Maine to Florida, and the builder's hopes and projects 
fell with it ; and there it lies to this day, a heap of ruins, sHvercd, 
blackened, and immense. 

One thing you cannot fail to notice in Mr. "Webster's career as a 
statesman. He is not always putting himself forward, not always 
springing up to address the House, not always crying out Mr. 
Speaker. He is a quiet man, silent for the most part, attentive, 
listening, thinking, seldom speaking. But when he does speak, it is 
on some occasion worthy of him. It is when some important princi- 
ple is to be settled, some great right to be vindicated, some great 
wrong to be put down, some dangerous crisis to be met. Then he 
comes forth, and his speech moves straight onward to the mark ; he 
deals little in rhetorical flourishes or figures, sounds no trumpets 
before him, deals in plain, simple words, that the child and the 
peasant might understand, grasps the great principles, the important 
points, that are to be elucidated and settled, holds them up in clear, 
definite outline, and places them in a clear, strong, all-pervading 
light, and leaves those cases, and those principles, and those ques- 
tions settled once and forever. No man need argue them again. 
Thus it was A\dth the questions involved in the great conflict with 
Hayne, and also, subsequently, in the debate with Calhoun. No 
error, no sophistry, no lie, how skilfully contrived or how strong 
soever, when once felled by his arm, ever had life to rise again upon 
its feet and do battle in some other part of the field. Its career was 
ended — finished — done. 

The striking feature, however, of Mr. Webster's course as a states- 
man, that which gives character to his whole public life, that which 
will be remembered of him and spoken of him a century hence, when 
all that knew him personally are gone, is unquestionably his love of, 
and devotion to, the Constitution of the United States. This is the 
ground- work of his whole political and public career, the foundation 
of his strength and of his fame, the very substance and texture of his 
greatness and his glory. His great eff"orts, his great speeches, have 
all had reference to this, and have grown out of it. No man under- 
stood that Constitution better ; no man made it more thoroughly the 
study of his life ; no man cherished for it a higher regard and vene- 
4 



26 

ration ; no man labored more earnestly to defend and maintain it in 
all its integrity, and hand it unimpaired to coming ages. This was 
his mission, his life-work, and how nobly, how greatly has he accom- 
plished it. His love of that remarkable instrument began early in 
life. He was yet a mere boy, when he saw the first copy of it ; it 
was printed on a cheap cotton handkerchief; and under that now 
aged elm that cast its broad shadow over the lawn at his father's 
door, he threw himself down that summer day on the cool grass, and 
with no little interest, and delight, perused for the first time the Con- 
stitution of his country, he who was to be its greatest expositor, its 
chief, foremost defender. The aged elm still stands ; the noble Con- 
stitution stands and will stand ; but the boy who read, and the man 
who defended it, are gone. Not gone, however, and never to be 
gone, the result and influence of those labors. Time shall not im- 
pair their value. It shall rather add to their worth. While the Con- 
stitution of these United States remains, its best exposition will be 
found in the speeches of Daniel Webster ; and should the time ever 
come when men shall enquire for it among the things that are past, 
they will find its true character and history no where else so well 
portrayed as in those speeches. 

It is not, however, on his congressional labors solely that the rep- 
utation of Mr. Webster as a statesman rests. His state papers are 
worthy of his pen, and such as very few men but he ever Avrote. 
Have you forgotten that Hulsemann letter ; or the terse, calm, but 
terribly earnest language of another document, in which he assures 
the British crown that American seamen, in all cases, will find their 
protection in the flag that waves over them ? Have you forgotten 
with what skill, and manifest ability, he met and overcame the diffi- 
culties arising out of the North-eastern boundary ; and how, as no 
man living but he could probably have done, he brought those diffi- 
culties, and dangerous questions, to a settlement, honorable at once to 
each of the great nations interested in the controversy .'' It was 
honor enough for one man and one life to have adjusted the Ashbur- 
ton treaty. 

There is one point in Mr. Webster's career as a statesman, which 
demands more special notice. I refer to the position which he saw 
fit to assume in relation to the Compromise measures, as indicated in 
his famous speech on the 7th of March, 1850. 



27 

If there be any portion of his political life wliicli is open to serious 
question, as respects the wisdom of the course pursued, the justice of 
the principles maintained, the soundness and correctness of the views 
advanced, if there be any of his measures about which posterity will 
be divided in opinion, doubtless it is this. There are those who 
hesitate not to pronounce that speech the ablest, and the position 
therein assumed as the noblest, of his life. There are those who re- 
gard him as having, by that step, saved the Union, and averted the 
horrors of civil war. However it may be now regarded, when time 
and sober judgment have come in to modify the first impressions, 
certain it is that Mr. "Webster, on that occasion, took the north and 
even his own party and personal adherents by surprise. They were 
not prepared for so bold a step. It was directly contrary to their 
prejudices as northern men, and their cherished principles as philan- 
thropists and Christians. Men of all parties, and all professions and 
creeds, in politics, morals, and theology, who had regarded Mr. "Web- 
ster with unbounded admiration hitherto, as the champion of freedom 
and of the truth, now felt that they could follow him no longer. It 
was not the unguided and headstrong, the fanatics and ultraists of the 
day. The sound, sober, thinking men of the north, the conscience 
and the religious sentiment of the north, the humanity and sense of 
justice of the north, aye, and of the west, shrank back alarmed and 
astonished. It is certainly not too much to say that the heart of 
New England was deeply grieved ; and that multitudes of sober, 
honest, hard-working, hard-thinking men, have never, to this day, 
been able to reconcile that step with Mr. "Webster's previous course 
and oft-declared sentiments of hostility to slavery. I, too, was sur- 
prised and grieved. But, looking back now from another and a more 
impartial stand-point, comparing more carefully the sentiments then 
uttered with the views previously advanced, taking into view the cir- 
cumstances in which the country was then placed, and Mr. "Webster's 
known attachment to the Constitution and the Union, there is one 
thing I cannot do, — and that is, to admit, for one moment, that Mr. 
"Webster was actuated in that matter by any other than the most hon- 
orable and high-minded motives ; — that he was bidding for southern 
votes. I will not believe it. That he did mistake, somewhat, the 
true state of public sentiment in the free States, I am ready to con- 
cede. That he yielded too much to southern arrogance and dictation, 



28 

is very possible. That he looked with too single an eye to that 
which naight save the Union, and overlooked too much the eternal 
principles of right and justice, which are above all questions of the 
day, and all temporary expedients, this I must admit. But more 
than this I cannot and I will not say. That he deliberately betrayed 
the north for the sake of favor with the south, — he, the man of all 
others whom the north and the whole country delighted to honor ; 
he who had spent his life in the advocacy of the noblest sentiments 
of humanity and the dearest rights of man ; he, now an old man, — • 
the height of reputation and honor already attained, and looking for- 
ward to the period as not far distant when he should bid final adieu 
to all earthly things ; — that such a man should deliberately sell him- 
self, abandon his well-earned fame, the good opinion of those with 
whom he had hitherto acted, his own principles, his own self-respect, 
his whole past life indeed, — all, — all ; — that he should give up all for 
the miserable chance of a nomination to an office hardly worthy of 
him, at the best, this is too much to believe. He was a man of the 
truest political integrity, the truest patriotism. He loved his coun- 
try. He loved the Union and the Constitution. He thought them 
both in danger. He thought some concession, and some valuable 
concession, must be made. He stopped not to enquire, what will my 
constituents say of me, but -with a bold, an honest, and a determined 
heart, he took his position and kept it. It may have been a mistaken 
position ; it was an honest one. 

But great as was the ability of Mr. Webster as a statesman, and 
invaluable as were his public services to the country, it must be said, 
and, for one, I say it with shame and mortification, those services 
were, in one respect, at least, but ill-requited by his ungrateful coun- 
try. For twenty years, the name of Daniel Webster has been prom- 
inent among those worthy to receive the nomination of the Avhig 
party for the presidency. No man had done so much to strengthen 
that party as he ; — no man had so ably maintained its principles, — 
fought its battles, — upheld its very existence. Four times in conven- 
tion, at so many different campaigns, was that great name presented ; 
— four times rejected for the name of some inferior available candi- 
date. Shame to the conventions, and shame to the cause, that ac- 
knoAvledge no higher principle than that. " Into their assembly, O 
my soul, come thou not ; and to their honor be not thou united" ! 



29 

From that disgrace, I am proud that New England fstands acquitted. 
All honor to the men who, to the very last, upheld the dignity and 
self-respect of old Massachusetts, by bearing aloft, above the strife 
and tumult of that conflict, the man that they delighted to honor, as 
the only name worthy to receive the nation's choice. Honor to those 
men. 

Do you ask why so great a man as Daniel Webster did not receive, 
and that by universal acclamation, the choice, I will not say of hi3 
party, but of the whole country ; — why the nation so proud of him, 
so deeply indebted to him, did not honor, I will not say him, but 
itself, by placing him in the highest office within its gift ? Posterity, 
generations yet unborn, I doubt not, will ask that question. Shall I 
tell you what I think the true answer is, and will be to these future 
generations and centuries? It is simply this. He was too great a 
man for so mean and paltry a gift. He was too far above the great 
mass of the nation, to be truly understood and appreciated by them. 
They did not know the full value of his services, did not fathom his 
greatness. Poor souls ! how could they ? A cocked hat, or a mili- 
tary plume they can understand; but not so fully the Ashburton 
treaty. The defense of New Orleans, and the capture of Mexico, are 
intelligible to the mass ; not so the defense of that Constitution which 
is worth more than a thousand Mexicos. The metaphysical Grecian 
defined a man to be a biped without feathers : but the multitude 
cannot raise their thoughts to such a pitch of abstraction as that ; to 
their idea of a true man the feathers are essential ; and so the feath- 
ers received the nomination, and the man was sent home dishonored. 
Dishonored, did I say ? I take back that word. If there be a 
man here among you all, whose narrow mind for one moment enter- 
tains such a thought, who, in his deepest heart, honors the memory 
of Daniel Webster the less, because he was never elected or even 
nominated to the presidency, — and thinks of him as inferior on that 
account to the mere successful, — though, after all, it seems not more 
available candidate, — who would have thought the higher of him had 
he received that nomination, that choice, forgetting that it is the man 
that honors the place, and not the place the man, — let such an one 
stand forth, — for he, of all others, is a fit person himself to receive the 
nomination of the next Baltimore convention. 



30 

ME. WEBSTER, A9 AN OEATOB. 

As an Orator, one can be at no loss what to think of Mr. Web- 
ster. Who, that has heard him, need be told that his great strength 
lay in the power to convince the understanding, by presenting truth, 
so clearly, so cogently, that the hearer could not, by any effort of 
will, by any voluntary blindness, resist the conclusion inevitably 
forced upon him. He knew, as every great orator must, how to 
reach the heart, and touch the secret place of tears. But he dealt 
not ordinarily with the emotions. His appeal was to the understand- 
ing, the reason of his hearers. He was eloquent, not so much by 
reason of skilful, touches, and artful appeals to the sensibilities, as 
by reason of strong arguments. He dealt chiefly with facts. He 
gathered them from the four quarters of the earth, and piled them up 
round about him, like granite mountains. He was strong, as they 
were strong. He was eloquent, as they, in their collected compact 
solid towering grandeur, were themselves eloquent and sublime. He 
dealt, I say, with facts, not with rhetoric; had to do \vith thoughts 
more than with words. Yet, no man knew better than he the power of 
a right word to express a right thought, or how much depends often 
on the right choice of a word, to send home a thought, or clench an 
argument. His style was simple, chaste, strong rather than figurative, 
ornate, rhetoric. Yet, no man had better command of the Ciceroni- 
an method, whenever he chose to make use of it. This, however, he 
seldom did. He preferred the lofty simplicity, the stern grandeur of 
the Demosthenic style, and seldom left its elevation and majesty, for 
a descent to the more gentle and beautiful lowlands. His march was 
like Apollo's along the mountain tops — and as he went, 

His style, in a word, is always simple, clear, strong, majestic ; a ner- 
vous energy courses along his sentences, as the electric fluid courses 
alono- the wires ; they are instinct with life, like the creatures of the 
prophet's vision by the river Chebar. His words are drawn up like 
soldiers in solid phalanx, close, compact, firm, immovable, each one 
in the smallest space, each one looking and moving straight onward, 
each one bearing arms. His sentences stand self-supporting, yet 
mutually connected, solid, immovable, like the pillars of the giant's 



81 

causeway. It must be a strong arm that shall tear one of them 
away. 

His manner was admirably adapted to his style and cast of thought ; 
— simple, unaffected, earnest, majestic — conveying to the hearer, 
first and chiefly, the one idea of immense power. Plis step, as he 
came forward, was lion-like, — his whole bearing and carriage, ma- 
jestic and kingly. He stood, and he looked every inch, a God, re- 
minding you of Homer's description of Agamemnon reviewing the 
Grecian host ; — 

•' Great as the Gods, the exalted Chief was seen, 
His strength like Neptune, and like Mars, his mien, 
Jove o'er his eyes celestial glories spread, 
And dawning conquest played around his head." 

From his first appearance, your eye never wandered from him for a 
moment ; you stood spell-bound, as in the presence of some superior 
being ; you felt, before he opened his lips, that all your reasons and 
all your arguments were giving way — that it was all over with you — 
a foregone conclusion — that you had nothing to ofi'er why sentence 
should not even then be pronounced ; you stood hopeless and help- 
less — resigned yourself at discretion, to be borne along on the calm 
but irresistible flow of his words, whithersoever he would. This is 
the highest idea I can conceive of human power. It is such as God 
seldom gives to one man over his fellows. But to this man, Daniel, 
it was given. You saw it in his very form, — in that broad, full chest, 
— that perfectly erect figure, — that massive frame, — that kingly 
countenance, — that compressed lip, — that great overhanging brow, — 
that full, round, dark eye beneath, glowing like the fires of a black- 
smith's forge in a dark night, — above all, that indescribable gloomy 
grandeur, such as the poet gathers around the head of angry Apollo — 

"And gloomy darkness rolled around his head." 
Well might Thorwalsden, the Danish Sculptor, as his eye fell on the 
bust of Webster, in Power's studio, exclaim, ' is that the head of any 
man ? What a brow, what an eye, what a head' ! Well might the coal 
heavers, as he walked along the streets of London, mistake him for a 
king. 

But not on the strength of his style, the impressiveness of his 
manner, the native dignity and majesty of his form, did Mr. Webster 
rely for his su-^cess in oratory. No man knew better than he, that 



33 

all these were mere accessories, that all these, however available in 
themselves, might be dispensed with, but that one thing could not be 
dispensed with by any man, under any circumstances ; — viz : thor- 
ough, laborious preparation. Those who knew Mr. Webster most in- 
timately, concur in this, as the peculiarity of his speaking, — the intense 
study, and thorough comprehension, in all its details, of the subject on 
which he was to speak. One of them does not hesitate to say, that in his 
opinion, others might speak as well, would they but prepare themselves 
as thoroughly. Even his impromptu speeches were no exception to 
this rule. The language, the sentences, were extempore, not the 
thoughts, not the copious knowledge, not the aiiluence and elegance 
and simplicity of his nervous diction, not the taste that presided 
over the choice of every word, and the utterance of every thought, 
not the power of luminous cogent reasoning, not the culture and 
discipline of that towering intellect, — these were not extempore, — 
they never are; — they were the result of many years of hard, patient, 
unremitting toil. Mr. Webster was a student in the highest sense. 
He was constantly studying, observing, learning. He was always 
preparing to speak — therefore always prepared. The extent of his 
researches is quite astonishing. There was hardly a science with 
which he was not familiar in all its details. Not merely with law 
and politics, and constitutional history, and civil history, with litera- 
ture, ancient and modern, with theology, with the agricultural, the 
manufacturing, and the aesthetic arts, was he familiar, but with the 
philosophy of Aristotle, and the whole range of natural science. He 
could converse on equal terms, with Agassiz, on the lines of distri- 
bution of plants and animals, — with Audobon on birds — vnth Lyell 
on Geology, and Liebig on Chemistry. Such was the comprehensive- 
ness of his mind, such his untiring diligence, that everything he knew 
linked in with everything else he knew, and formed part of a grand 
and complete whole. This is, in fact, the very nature of truth — the 
very nature of a truth-loving and noble mind. 

Another characteristic of Mr. Webster, as an orator, and one in- 
timately connected with the last, is his perfect self-possession. Noth- 
ing ever disconcerted him, or put him off his guard. You never saw 
him flurried, however excited. He was as calm and collected in his 
very excitement and anger, as in any other mood. He held the reins 
however fast the coursers sped. He was as calm as a summer morn- 



83 

ing, when he rose in the crowded Senate room, to reply to Hayne. 
He had had such provocation as few men, under like circumstances, 
ever had. In set and labored speech, and with malice aforethought, 
a direct attack had been made upon New England, and himself per- 
sonally. Abuse in no measured terms, had been heaped upon each. 
It was evidently a preconcerted onset on the part of the leaders of 
the senate, and with the express design of crushing Mr. Webster. 
The odds were fearful and overwhelming against him. Not only his 
own honor and reputation were at stake, but those of his beloved New 
England, deliberately assailed through her representative. "When 
Gen. Hayne closed his speech, he had evidently left a deep impres- 
sion upon the Senate, and all seemed to feel that victory was already 
perched upon his banner. The Senate adjourned. It was known 
that Mr. Webster was to reply the next day. His best friends hesi- 
tated, feared, were silent and sad. His enemies were exultant. Next 
morning at an early hour, the Senate Chamber was crowded to its 
utmost capacity, — aisles, Seats, galleries, passages, antechambers, the 
very steps and porticos of the Capitol, were black with human forms 
that " hung one to another," says the historian, " like bees in a 
swarm," Mr. Webster saw and felt the greatness of the occasion. 
He knew what was expected of him, knew his own resources, and 
" awaited the time of onset," says the saine writer, "with a stern and 
impatient joy, like the war-horse of the scriptures who paweth 
in the valley and rejoiceth in his strength ; who goeth on to meet the 
armed men — who sayeth among the trumpets. Ha ! Ha ! who smell- 
eth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and their shout- 
ing." Yet, continues the same graphic writer, "he never rose on or- 
dinary occasion, to address an ordinary audience, more self-possessed. 
There was no tremulousness in his voice, nor manner ; nothing hur- 
ried, nothing stimulated. The calmness of superior strength was vis- 
ible everywhere ; in countenance, voice and bearing. A deep-seated 
conviction of the extraordinary character of the emergency, and of 
his ability to control it, seemed to pass him wholly." 

I cannot perhaps, better convey an idea of the power of Mr. Web- 
ster's oratory, than by citing from the same author, Mr. C. W. Marsh, 
a passage or two descriptive of the effect of the speech to which al- 
lusion has been made. Hefcrring to the beautiful and well known 
exordium, Mr. March savs : — 
5" 



S4 

" There wanted no more to enchain the attention. There was a 
spontaneous, though silent, expression of eager approbation, as the 
Orator concluded these opening remarks. And while the clerk read 
the resolution, many attempted the impossibility of getting nearer 
the speaker. Every head was inclined close towards him, every ear 
turned in the direction of his voice, — and that deep, sudden, myste- 
rious silence followed, which always attends fullness of emotion. 
From the sea of upturned faces before him, the Orator beheld his 
thoughts reflected as from a mirror." 

" In one corner of the gallery was clustered a group of Massachu- 
setts men. They had hung from the first moment, upon the words 
of the speaker, with feelings variously, but always warmly excited, 
deepening in intensity, as he proceeded. At first, while the Orator 
was going through his exordium, they held their breath, and hid their 
faces, mindful of the savage attack upon him and New England, and 
the fearful odds against him, her champion ; — as he Avent deeper into 
his speech, they felt easier ; but now, as he alluded to Massachusetts, 
their feelings were strained to the highest tension ; and when the Or- 
ator, concluding his encomium upon the land of their birth, turned, 
intentionally, or otherwise, his burning eye full upon them — they shed 
tears like girls !" 

Referring to the manner and appearance of the Orator, the same 
writer continues; — 

"His countenance spoke no less audibly than his words. * * # 
As he stood swinging his right arm, like a huge tilt-hammer, up, 
down, his swarthy countenance lighted up with excitement, he ap- 
peared amid the smoke, the fire, the thunder of his eloquence, like a 
Vulcan in his armory forging thoughts for the Gods ! * * * His 
ponderous syllables had an energy, a vehemence of meaning in them, 
that fascinated, while they startled. * * * There was a sense 
of power in his language, — of power -svithheld and suggestive of still 
greater power, — that subdued, as by a spell of mastery, the hearts of 
all. For power whether intellectual or physical, produces in its ear- 
nest development, a feeling closely allied to awe. It was never more 
felt than on this occasion. It had the entire mastery." 
* " The swell and roll of his voice struck upon the ears of the spell- 
bound audience, in deep and melodious cadence, as waves upon the 
shore of the far-resounding sea. The Miltonic grandeur of his word% 



36 

was the fit expression of his thought, and raised his hearers up to his 
theme. His voice, exerted to its utmost power, penetrated every re- 
cess, or corner of the Senate — penetrated even the ante-rooms and 
stairways, as he pronounced in deepest tones of pathos these words 
of solemn significance. " When my eyes shall be turned to behold, 
for the last time, «S^c." 

" The speech was over, but the tones of the orator, still lingered 
upon the ear, and the audience, unconscious of the close, retained 
their positions. The agitated countenance, the heaving breast, the 
sufiused eye, attested the continued influence of the spell upon them. 
Hands that in the excitement of the moment had sought each other, 
still remained closed in an unconscious grasp. When the "S'ice Pres- 
ident, hastening to dissolve the spell, angiily called to order ! Order ! 
there never was a deeper stillness, not a movement, not a gesture 
had been made — not a whisper uttered. Order ! Silence could almost 
have heard itself, it was so supernaturally still. The feeling was too 
overpowering, to allow expression by voice or hand. It was as if 
one was in a trance, all motion paralyzed." 

" But the descending hammer of the chair awoke them, -with a start 
— and with one universal, long-drawn deep breath, with which the 
over-charged heart seeks relief, — the crowded assembly broke up and 
departed." 

MB. WEBSTEE AS A MAN. 

Time will allow us to sketch but briefly, the personal and private 
character of Mr. Webster. We have viewed him as a lawyer, a 
statesman, an orator. It remains now, to view him as a man. Thus 
far in the spheres of action which we have seen him occupying, the 
towering intellect of the man, has attracted and absorbed our atten- 
tion. But the intellect is not the whole, nor the chief part of man. 
It was not the whole of Mr. Webster. Great as he was in intellect, 
he was great in heart and soul. He had warm sympathies. It was 
not his great intellect, his sagacity, his wisdom, his knowledge of 
men and things, his eloquent speech, his rich imagination, his culti- 
vated taste, — not these alone, that made him great, and placed him 
on a throne, such as no hereditary monarch of Europe occupies, — the 
throne of a nation's unbounded admiration and homage. There must 
be more than all these, or the man is cold, solitary, and alone, in all 



36 

his greatness ; admired it may be, but never loved. You know it 
was not so with him. What man was ever so deeply loved, almost to 
idolatry, so worshipped of all hearts, as was Daniel Webster, of all 
that knew him. Especially, how did his own New England, and his 
own dear State, — his and ours — our noble Massachusetts, love that 
man. How his own neighbors, — the honest farmers of Marshfield, — 
his fellow laborers in the soil, who saw him in his daily walks, and 
ordinary avocations, who knew him, not as a statesman and orator, 
but as one of themselves, — a plain man, — how did they honor, and 
how did they love him. 

The greatness of his intellect did not weaken the force, or impair 
the sacredness, and strength of his domestic attachments. As a son, 
as a brother, as a father, as a friend, as master of a household, in 
each and all these relations, his life is unimpeachable, and in them all 
he exhibits a rare strength of affection, and fidelity of attachment. 
We see him weeping at the hardships and privations which his pa- 
rents were obliged to undergo for the sake of their children ; we see 
him sacredly cherishing their memory to his latest days, fond of the 
humble tenement of his birth ; we see him toiling in the long winter 
evenings, in the Registrar's office, to earn the means of a brother's 
education; we see him opening an office in Boscawen, that he might 
be near his aged father ; we see him in his own family, loved and 
honored of all, the centre of all hearts ; we sec him at the bed-side of 
his dying daughter, absorbed in grief, and seeking relief in prayer ; 
we see him with pious care, planting with his own hands, on the lawn 
before his dwelling, the elms that should stand, and grow, and spread 
in stature and beauty, when he was gone, mementoes of his beloved 
Julia and Edward ; we see his faithful domestics refusing for a mo- 
ment to leave his bed-side when disease and death had laid relentless 
hands upon him ; we see him with careful and affectionate forethought, 
assigning those faithful domestics a place near his bier, in the sad 
funeral procession, and selecting as his pall bearers, not the governors 
and counsellors of the land, who would have been proud of the hon- 
or, but his own neighbors, — the honest farmers of Marshfield ; — we 
see him in his life-time, preparing and adorning an enclosure and a 
tomb, whither the departed of his family, the loved and lost, but not 
forgotten, should be borne, as to a quiet home, the mother and the 
£hildren, and the little ones, where he and they, and those who 



37 

Bhoulcl come after him, mij^lit lie do-\vn together, a reunited house 
to "slumber while the world gi-ows old;" — and in all these things, 
Ave see the heart of the man true to its sympathies, strong in its af- 
fection, great in the strength and permanence of its attachments. 

Among other traits of Mr. "Webster's personal character, his integ- 
rity stands forth. Even his opponents admit this. Of all the public 
men whom I have known, says Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Webster seems to 
me to have been actuated by the purest motives and the strictest re- 
gard to truth and honor. This is a noble tribute from an antagonist. 
" In all that I have ever seen or heard of Daniel Webster," says one 
who knew him long and intimately, (Mr. Hiram Ketchum, of X. Y.) 
*' I have known him to be a man of the highest integrity. It al- 
ways seemed to me, that whatever he did, was done with a knowl- 
edge that not only the eyes of this generation, but of all posterity, 
were upon him. He regarded political power as a sacred trust ; and 
though always willing to gratify friends, he never allowed any con- 
sideration to induce him to violate that great trust. I knew him in 
private life, and have received many letters from him. I have met him 
too at the festive board. And I bear witness, that I never heard an im- 
proper thought — a profane expression come from the lips of Mr. Web- 
ster. He never, in my hearing, assailed private character. No man 
was ever slandered — no man was ever ill-spoken of by Daniel Web- 
ster." What high praise, what honor is this, to one whose whole 
life was passed in the exciting scenes of political contention and 
combat. 

It has been frequently asserted, that Mr. Webster was negligent 
as to his pecuniary liabilities. That he was not careful of money, 
did not hoard it, nor set his heart upon it, is evident. His mind was 
upon other things. The all-powerful dollar was not to him, in his 
range of vision, the greatest good nor the chief end of man on the 
earth. That he defrauded his creditors of their just dues, however, 
is yet to be shown. His private secretary, Mr. Abbott, who has had 
charge of his books for the last few years, testifies explicitly that he 
never knew a bill presented, during that time, which was not cheer- 
fully and promptly paid. One of the last acts of his life was to pay 
up all the laborers on his farm, that he might not die in debt to any 
man. 

'Mi. Webster's courtesy is not less marked than his integrity. No 



38 

one can read his speeches, and not be struck with this — the rare 
courtesy, and decorum of speech and manner, on all occasions, to his 
bitterest opponents no less than his warmest friends. He descended 
to no personalities, no inuendoes and side thrusts, no ribaldrj-, no 
abuse. He was always the high minded and honorable gentleman ; 
and always treated those with whom he had to do, as gentlemen. He 
never insulted any man, in the whole course of his public life, never 
maliciously assailed any man, provoked no personal quarrels, no pri- 
vate feuds. He rode over the field, a knight in full armor, and con- 
scious of irresistable strength, but threw down no challenge to the 
passer by, — nay, bore the most irritating provocation from others, 
with that calmness and undisturbed dignity, which only the truly 
great soul can exercise. It is the testimony of one acquainted with 
his public life, that in his whole congressional course, he had never 
once known Mr. Webster called to order, for any irregularity, or im- 
propriety of speech or manner. 

Mr. Webster has sometimes been accused of irreli2;ion. Nothina: 
I am confident, can be farther from the truth. It is exactly the re- 
verse. Mr. Webster was, I am persuaded, a religious man, in the 
true sense of that word — was more than most men under the abiding 
impression of religious truth. His whole life, in public and in pri- 
vate, attests this. His speeches attest it. His death attests it. His 
pastor, who knew perfectly well his sentiments and his feelings on 
this subject, bears the following testimony. " I am bound to say 
that in the course of my life, I never met with an individual in any 
profession, or condition, who always spoke and and always thought 
with such awful reverence of the power and presence of God, No 
irreverance, no lightness, even no too familiar allusions to God and 
his attributes, ever escaped his lips. The very notion of a supreme 
Being was with him, made up of awe and solemnity. It filled the 
whole of his great mind with the strongest emotions. * * * 
Mr. Webster's religious sentiments and feelings were the crowning 
glories of his character." 

Professor ShurtlefF, of Dartmouth College, refci-ring to a conver- 
sation with Mr. Webster, about two years ago, says, " When I at- 
tempted to turn the conversation towards religion, he at once antici- 
pated me, and laid the subject fully open between us; and I need 
not tell you how much I was gratified in finding that not only his 



89 

opinions in regard to the great doctrines and duties of our holy reli- 
gion, but also his views of what is nccdfvd to prepare a soul for death 
and the coming judgment, were in sympatliy with my own." 

A correspondent of the New York Commercial Advertiser furnishes 
the following reminiscence of INIr. Webster's religious views. 

" Some years ago we had the pleasure of spending several days, in 
company with Mr. Webster, at the residence of a mutual friend, 
Harvey Ely, Esq., at Rochester. During that intercourse, we had 
more than one opportunity of conversing on religious subjects, some- 
times on doctrinal points, but more generally on the importance of 
the Holy Scriptures, as containing the plan of a man's salvation 
tkrough the atonement of Christ. So far as our knowledge of the 
subject extends, Mr. Webster was as orthodox as any man we ever 
conversed with." 

Mr. Webster's reverence for the Scriptures is well known. "On 
one occasion," says the correspondent just quoted, " Avhen seated 
in the drawing-room with Mr. and Mrs. Ely, Mr. Webster laid 
his hand on a copy of the Scriptures, saying with great emphasis, 
' This is the hook .'' This led to a conversation on the importance 
of the Scriptures, and the too frequent neglect of the study of the 
Bible by gentlemen of the legal profession, their pursuits in life lead- 
ing them to the almost exclusive study of works having reference to 
theu- profession. Mr. Webster said, ' I have read through the entire 
Bible many times. I now make a practice to go through it once a 
year. It is the book of all others for lawyers as well as divines ; 
and I pity the man who cannot find in it a rich supply of thought 
and of rules for his conduct. It fits man for life, it prepares him for 
death.' " 

How carefully he read, and how profoundly he studied and 
meditated upon those sacred truths, — making their thoughts, and, 
in many cases, their language, his own ; — Avith what delight he 
returned ever to that sublime, that favorite poem, the book of Job ; — 
with what devout care he gathered his household, especially on the 
sabbath, and read to them, in his own peculiarly impressive manner, 
with due emphasis, and due comment, the sacred Scriptures, able to 
make them wise unto salvation; — how, after himself too ill to join 
in this exercise, he still selected the portion to be read, and indicated 
the passages to be particularly noticed ; — these things are known to 



40 

all, — and they speak the deep religious sentiment, the earnest convic- 
tions of the man. What public speaker ever bore more honorable 
testimony to the value of religious institutions, and religious teachers, 
than did Mr. Webster, in his plea in the Girard case. Nor is this a 
solitary instance. It is in keeping with the whole tone and spirit of 
his public addresses. You cannot have forgotten that sublimely elo- 
quent passage in the tribute to Jeremiah Mason, — so expressive of 
the feelings of a heart deeply imbued with religioiis truth, — so appro- 
priate, shall I say, to his own case, as it were a solemn dirge com- 
posed beforehand for his own burial. " But, sir, political eminence 
and professional fame fade away and die with all things earthly. 
Nothing of character is really permanent but virtue and personal 
worth. These remain. Whatever of excellence is wrought into the 
soul itself belongs to both worlds. Real goodness does not attach 
itself merely to this life ; it points to another world. Political or 
professional reputation cannot last forever ; but a conscience void of 
offense before God and man is an inheritance for eternity. Religion, 
therefore, is a necessary and indispensable element in any great hu- 
man character. There is no living without it. Religion is the tie 
that connects man with his Maker, and holds him to his throne. If 
that tie be all sundered, all broken, he floats away a worthless atom 
in the universe ; its proper attractions all gone, its destiny thwarted, 
and its whole future nothing but darkness, desolation, and death. A 
man with no sense of religious duty, is he whom the Scriptures de- 
scribe, in such terse but terrific language, as living ' without God 
in the loorld.' Such a man is out of his proper being, out of the 
circle of all his duties, out of the circle of all his happiness, and 
away, far, far away, from the purposes of his creation." 

Such language as this comes not from any mind not itself deeply 
impressed with the truths of religion. We are not surprised to learn 
that Mr. Webster was in the habit of committing his thoughts on 
certain portions of Scripture to writing ; and that it was his intention 
to prepare a treatise on the internal evidences of Christianity, as a 
personal and dying testimony to his earnest conviction of the divine 
reality of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Nor are we surprised at the 
heroic calmness with which a mind thus conversant with eternal real- 
ities, and resting on the firm foundation of all truth, staying itself 
upon God's arm, and taking fast hold on those strong pillars that 



41 

bear up all our hopes, could meet the final and solemn moment of 
departure. '* "What," said he to those that gathered around him, 
" what would be the condition of any of us, without the hope of im- 
mortality ? What is there to rest that hope upon but the gospel ?" 
Such was Mr. Webster, as regards his private life, his personal Chris- 
tian character. 

Shall I allude to the solemn close of so great and eventful a life ? 
To me, there is something peculiarly sad and touching in the cir- 
cumstances of his death. After a period of forty years, devoted to 
the service of his country, service but ill-requited, he comes home 
— " An old man broken by the storms of state " — to seek, in the 
repose and quiet of private life, that rest which an impaired constitu- 
tion demands ; — to cultivate, after so many years of stormy conflict, 
that literary leisure which his taste demanded, and so highly fitted 
him to enjoy, — that otium cum dignitate of the Roman; — to mingle 
again ^vith the honest yeomanry of Marshfield — his friends and neigh- 
bors ; — to cultivate and adorn those fields which bear witness to his 
careful husbandry ; — to hear again the deep voice of the ever-rolling 
sea ; and, by careful communing with his own soul and his God, pre- 
pare to set sail upon that vaster and more solemn ocean that washes 
the shores of this our mortal life. These were his plans. They were 
not realized ; — that vast ocean was nearer than even he had thought. 
Its waves were already at his very feet. He came home but to die. 
In the full vigor of that noble intellect, with faculties unclouded, 
his eye not waxing dim, nor his natural strength abated, — with some 
sweet and pleasant years of yet remaining life floating in vision before 
him, the summons came, — the shadow, feared by men, fell o'er his 
path, — the sands had already run out, — the hour-glass stood empty. 
He recognized the summons, and hastily girding his robes about him, 
set forth on the long journey "whence no traveler returns." His 
last thoughts were given to his home, his family, his friends. Nor 
did his love of nature and the plain farm life, associated with his 
earliest recollections, aiid in Avhich he had so delighted from his boy- 
hood, forsake him, even at the last. But a few days before his death, 
when too ill to leave his dwelling, his cattle were driven up to his 
door, " that he might look once more into their honest faces, and 
emell their breath." Faithful friends ! — they had never deserted him, 
— they had never been unfaithful, — and he loved them for it. 



43 

• 

I need not relate the solemn scenes of that death-chamber ; — with 
what calmness he met the last great enemy ; — with what affectionate 
solicitude for the sorrow-stricken family that wept around him ; — 
with what great thoughts of the unknown future that was opening 
upon his vision. 

" My general wish on earth has been to do my Maker's will. ' I 
thank him. I thank him for the means of doing some little good ; 
for these beloved objects; for the blessings that surround me; for 
my nature and associations ; I thank him that I am to die under so 
many circumstances of love and affection." 

After an interval of some hours of apparent unconsciousness, from 
which it was supposed he woidd not again arouse, the deep silence of 
the house is broken by that voice once more heard, clear, deep, full 
as ever it had rung forth in the senate chamber, uttering, in his own 
emphatic manner, these words, — "Life — Life — Death — Death — how 
curious it is !" The mystery of death was passing before him. His 
great mind was busy with this new problem. Life — Life — Death — 
Death — how curious it is ! " It pierced to the farthest apartment of 
the house, startling those who heard it like the sound of a trumpet. 
Shrouded from the outer world, that vast mind was struggling with 
the vaster theme of Life and Death. As he passed the confines of 
mortal existence, the mysterious problem began to unfold itself, and 
the dying statesman watched it Avith increasing interest and wonder, 
until that startling exclamation burst from his lips. The inappro- 
priate use of the word ' curious ' reveals how completely he was ab- 
sorbed in the great thought. Standing where life and death met, he 
was so intent in the view before him, that he was unconscious what 
his tongue uttered." That voice was heard no more; that great 
mystery was solved. 

It was the hour of approaching morn when his spirit took its de- 
parture. The stars that had watched out the silent hours of that 
long and anxious night, were just fading into the dawn, as that great 
soul, released from the darkness of this lower world, and the bondage 
of this earthly tabernacle, also passed, like those fading stars, from 
our earthly vision, — ^passed on through the gates of the morning into 
the clearer light of day. 

With such gathering of multitudinous thousands, with such real, un- 
affected grief, as seldom follows man to his sepulture, they laid him 



43 

in Ms tomb, — a sacred spot and a beautiful one, hallowed by Pilgrim 
associations, and Pilgrim dust. There he sleeps and is at rest, with 
kings and mighty men of the earth. The storms of life, the conflicts 
of the political arena, the cares of state, no more disturb his deep 
repose. The simple name carved over that tomb-door is his sufficient 
and enduring monument. The sea, moaning along its shores, chants 
his requiem. The great unfathomable sea mourns for him, as con- 
scious that it has lost an equal and a brother. The great heart of 
the nation mourns for him, and will not let him die. 

"V\Tiat a life was that we have been contemplating ! Overlooking 
the growth, and identified with the history, of this great people ! 
He saw it in his boyhood, and his youth, a narrow belt of states 
stretching along the Atlantic coast. He saw it in his manhood, 
reaching out its strong arms over the mountains and broad valleys of 
the west. He saw it in his old age, a giant form, mature, and 
strong, and stately, reposing on either ocean, and covering the 
breadth of a vast continent. This nation may pass away. The link 
that binds these noble states may be severed ; our cities and our 
navies may perish, and all our grandeur die. But his name shall not 
die, — it cannot perish. " Quid- quid ex Agricola amavimus, quid- 
quid mirati sumus, manet mansurum que est in animis, hominum, in 
eternitate temporum fama rerum." 



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